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Posted on 08/07/2006 10:09:52 AM PDT by XR7
OLYMPIA — Medicaid officials plan to rewrite regulations to make it clear the state will no longer cover sex-change operations.
But before the new regulations are in place, the state will likely have to pay for more surgeries.
In a pair of rulings issued last month, a state appeals board ordered Medicaid to pay for two people to travel out of state to undergo sex-change operations. The state estimates the procedures, also known as sex-reassignment surgery, will cost $50,000 to $60,000 each...
But Porter said the state plans to continue covering other services — such as hormone treatment and psychotherapy — for people diagnosed with gender-identity disorders. State officials argue that those treatments are just as effective as surgery but are less risky and far less expensive.
"We understand this is a very real condition for some people," Porter said. "We just think psychotherapy and hormone treatment is a better way to go."
Many transgender people and medical experts who treat gender-identity disorders disagree. In some cases, they argue, surgery is the only effective treatment.
"It's the only thing that repairs our mental health and makes us feel whole and able to get back on track," said Lee, one of the two people who won on appeal last month...Lee, 51, said she has been undergoing hormone treatment and living as a woman for the past six years. She is scheduled to undergo sex-change surgery this fall in Colorado.
Chris Daley, director of the California-based Transgender Law Center, said the state's plan to remove sex-reassignment surgery from its list of covered services is "pure politics and bad public policy."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Better sign up now, while the State's paying!
Lorena Bobbitt can do the surgery for a lot less than $50,000!
$10.00
The price of a new 'Ginsu knife'.
It is a mental disorder, operate on the brain.
the female to male procedure Rush so eloquently calls " an addadicktome "
It's OK, Cuba is offering sex change operations for free
What a joke. Only a Psychologist/witch could come up with something like that.
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